52k Words Is Almost 52 Weeks Old!

Celebrating 52 weeks of writing 52k words. Explore the challenges, achievements, and reflections from this year-long commitment.

Shit’s weird. I just dug out my update taken from my blog: Here’s the link 52k Words It’s about keeping a commitment to writing regularly. And it’s nuts for now to think I’ve been writing this newsletter for 11 months on and off. If it gets sent out 1x every 3 days then we’re talking about you having received this 210 days after first signing up for it. That’s pretty crazy as it’s a full 7-months after you read my initial post. It’s interesting to see how you get further into something and how your ambitions change. At one stage I was releasing one of these every day, and a couple of people mentioned it was coming to them a little too much so I bought it down to 1x every couple of days. I’m having a self-reflective moment and it’s interesting to see how 11 months later I’ve kind of gone full circle and I’m sat in a DIFFERENT Costa Coffee - but am pretty much rocking the same setup: Deepak Shukla I took these photos just now. It’d be amazing if I’m here again another year from now and have similar photos to share with you. I’m beginning little by little to understand the power of consistency - and how powerful that can become in general. There’s a permanency to the things I wrote, the thoughts I put down and the words we commit to paper. I’ve been reading more and more of late about the hero's journey - and how we’re all the hero in our own story of life. When we wake up each day and get out of bed - especially those who have ambitions to build companies and do all of this type of stuff - it feels like I’m Sonic the Hedgehog at the centre of my own video game. So what have I learnt in the last year that I’d love to share with you?
  1. There’s power in waking up early (since Sep 2019)
My friend Umesh has finally started waking up at 6 am, and he’s been talking about how much difference it makes to his productivity. I started on this journey maybe in September or so last year - dedicating myself to (as close as I regularly can) the 430am start. It’s definitely changed my life when I think about the progress I’ve made this year as compared to the years before it. What’s changed really? I gave myself more productive hours than I’ve ever historically had. It’s really interesting how something as simple as waking up earlier can make a shift in the way you think about things and the things you get done
  1. There’s power in reading more (since May 2020)
This is a newer habit of mine. I spent the best part of the last 13 years reading on average maybe 3-5 books per year - which for a literature student such as myself is tiny. Even reading those books has helped me immensely - and it’s come in fits and starts and predominantly centred around pain points I’ve had in my life related to business and my relationships. However, since May I’ve taken it seriously and am reading more or less around 1 hour per day. It’s rewiring my brain I think, because of the sheer volume of knowledge I’m force feeding it.
  1. There’s power in staying committed to stuff (since Nov 2020)
That was when my 52k words journey began - in November of last year - that I really made a commitment to just writing more. And the grass grows where water flows. Now I’ve penned the first draft of a book - I have a newsletter that really serves as an opportunity for anyone to get to know me better, and now Chris is putting work in to grow my Medium account so I’ll be able to generate a consistent income from writing. Excited to see where I am with writing in another 12 months.
  1. Coaches help (since July 2020)
Chris, Valentina and Lee are my coaches right now. Chris works with me on my writing. Valentina is trying to help me hold my routine together and hold me to a higher standard and Lee is helping me become a better runner. I invest more than I ever have done into coaching, and I can see the payoff. With Chris, I’ve drafted my first book. With Valentina (it’s still early days) I’m beginning to understand more about what will slow me down and how to deal with that. With Lee, I am becoming a better and better runner having completed my best 10k in 41.30 as well as my best 1 mile in 5 minutes. Without coaches - none of these things would be possible. For reference, I found Chris and Valentina through Coach. And I found Lee through Googling ‘Running Coaches’ - which came after reading ‘Born to Run
  1. Building a brand can make all the difference (Aug 2017)
[convertful id="197358"] For the last 3 years now I’ve been focused on building the Pearl Lemon Brand in general, and I can say the payoff in the last 3 months. Pearl Lemon is approaching up to 10 leads per day (that’s what we got in the last 24 hours). Our internship programme has 28 people and is producing some amazing talent who are starting their own companies, going full-time with Pearl Lemon and are generally really learning and driving value. Internship Programme People A Lot of this has come from ultimately being consistent with the amount of work that has gone into growing the agency and building out the brand.
  1. Thinking longer term whilst working in sprints is highly effective
I still listen to white noise and set the Pomodoro up when I write these pieces. Set the Pomodoro It’s pretty much the way I’ll do anything. I determine something is good for me (or rather I enjoy something so I’ll make the time to do it), and then I’ll try and do it as quickly as possible That’s how I’ve managed to spit out around 950 words in 27 minutes (after a bit of a slow start). As you might have seen from the time stamp above I do these before the start of my ‘work day’. This is alongside reading for an hour or so. In this manner, my 52k series always gets done before ‘work work’ starts and is done pretty quickly whilst still serving some personal long-term goals I have. I’m still getting people signing up and reading the first-ever newsletter and it’s such a cool feeling haha - knowing that this will still serve me for the rest of my life ideally - as it’ll be timeless and represent a really interesting snapshot of my life 52K Words Hmmm. It’s been similar recently with the stuff I mentioned about my buddy George outranking me and the action I decided to take. Typically I get hit with some kind of stimulus and I decide to take massive action based on something that happened. That’s where I’ve brought to life a whole PR machine within Pearl Lemon that will hopefully within a year get us to a place where across the board we’re driving 500 inbound leads a month across our various websites. Anyway. Today is a short one as I’ve been on calls for 8 hours one day and then 5 hours the next and I’m really not used to it - so this is all part of some continued self reflection. Have a great day and as ever - you’ll catch me on the next one. Your friendly rambling writer (wow, I’m a writer!), Deepak Shukla